1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an on-vehicle terminal apparatus for a dedicated short range communication system (hereinafter also referred to as the DSRC communication system only for the convenience of description) which apparatus is destined to be mounted on a motor vehicle having a radio tag installed therein. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with a technique for making it possible to utilize motor vehicle information without need for recording the vehicle information in the on-vehicle terminal apparatus itself to thereby render unnecessary the processing of recording the motor vehicle information which will otherwise have to be executed e.g. every time the on-vehicle terminal apparatus is lent out in the rental or the like business, whereby the handleability or serviceability of the on-vehicle terminal apparatus for the OSRC communication system is significantly enhanced.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, the system designed for carrying out toll collection transactions by making use of the DSRC communication (this system is generally known as the electronic toll collection automatic system or ETC system in abbreviation) has widely been adopted at the toll charge stations on the toll roads for the purpose of mitigating the traffic jam.
In the electronic toll collection automatic system (hereinafter also referred to as the ETC system), the toll charged for using the toll road is automatically collected at the toll station through radio-communication-based transaction between the ETC-dedicated on-road equipment which is installed at the site of the toll station (hereinafter this equipment will be referred to as the base station) and the on-vehicle terminal apparatus for the ETC system which is installed on the motor vehicle (hereinafter this apparatus will also be referred to as the mobile station or simply as the on-vehicle apparatus).
With the ETC system mentioned above, the time taken for the toll collect transaction is shorter than the time required for the toll collection by man power at the ordinary toll station. As a result of this, the number of the motor vehicles capable of passing through the gate within a predetermined time can be increased, which in turn contributes to mitigation of the traffic jam, as is known in the art.
In this conjunction, the toll charged for using the toll road generally differs in dependence on the types of the motor vehicles in many cases. Accordingly, in the ETC system, the amount of the toll as charged will have to be made different in dependence on the types of the motor vehicles.
Such being the circumstances, the vehicle type information is recorded in the on-vehicle apparatus for the ETC system so that the amounts of tolls which differ in dependence on the types of the motor vehicles can be charged on the basis of the vehicle type information. In that case, the records of the vehicle type information in the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatuses are ordinarily placed under the management of a specific institution or organization with a view to preventing the illegal or unauthorized use of the records.
As exemplary or typical ones of the techniques concerning the on-vehicle terminal apparatuses for the DSRC communication systems known heretofore, there can be mentioned “a method of issuing on-vehicle apparatuses in an electronic toll collection automatic system” disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 175783/1999 (J-P-A-1999-175783), “a gate apparatus, an on-vehicle apparatus, an on-vehicle apparatus set-up method, a toll collecting transaction method and an admission/leaving method” disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 307151/2001 (J-P-A-2001-307151), “on-vehicle apparatus for a toll collecting transaction system” disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 16493/2003 (J-P-A-2003-16493) and “ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus” disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 150994/2003 (J-P-A-2003-150994), by way of example.
In order to reduce or mitigate sufficiently the traffic jam with the aid of the toll collecting transaction system mentioned above, it is required that a number of motor vehicles traveling on the toll road, being aided with this system, exceeds a predetermined number. To this end, the number of the users of the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus must be correspondingly increased.
However, in order to utilize the system mentioned above, the user must purchase (or rent) the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus. In this conjunction, it is however noted that the user who uses the toll road less frequently does not dare to purchase the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus from the economical viewpoint in view of the fact that the effect is low for the cost involved in installing the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus on his or her car. For this reason, the use of the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus is not widely spread at present.
On the other hand, there has been proposed a method of lending out the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus only at the time of using the toll road to thereby promote the installation of the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus. In that case, however, very troublesome procedure is required because of the necessity of recording the motor vehicle information in the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus upon every lending out thereof. For this reason, the number of the users who resort to the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus rental method remains small.
The reason for such unpopularity as mentioned above may be explained by the fact that because the processing of recording the vehicle type information in the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus is executed under the management of a specific institute or organization for the purpose of preventing the illegal or unauthorized use, as pointed out previously, a lot of time is required for the user to complete the processing procedure of writing the motor vehicle information, which is effected every time the user hires the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus.
In the on-vehicle terminal apparatus for the DSRC communication system known heretofore, the processing of recording the vehicle type information in the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus is ordinarily executed under the management of the specific institution, as is described in every one of the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publications enumerated previously. Consequently, difficulty has been encountered in spreading widely the use of the ETC-destined on-vehicle apparatus, which in turn means that the effect of mitigating the traffic jam has not yet been achieved regardless of introduction of the toll collecting transaction system based on the DSRC system, giving rise to a problem remaining to be solved.